JONATHAN ADLER: The Illegal Implementation Of ObamaCare.

The Obama administration has repeatedly flouted legal requirements or acted outside the scope of its delegated authority when implementing Obamacare. I’ve argued as much in numerous blog posts, congressional testimony and in a chapter on what I call the “Ad Hoc Implementation of Obamacare” in a new book, “Liberty’s Nemesis: The Unchecked Expansion of the State.” David Bernstein also makes this case in his book, “Lawless,” as have others such as Iowa law professor Andy Grewal.

Criticism of the Obama administration’s implementation of Obamacare from the administration’s critics is not particularly surprising. Although some of us may have criticized equivalent Bush administration lawlessness, there’s not much newsworthy about an administration taking fire from across the aisle.

It is more notable when a prominent defender of the Obama administration acknowledges that the administration has colored outside the lines, and not always with good justification. So those interested in the Affordable Care Act and the administrative law should give Nicholas Bagley’s new paper on “Legal Limits and the Implementation of the Affordable Care Act” a careful read. The paper’s still in draft form — and in my view bends over backward to provide the most charitable read of the administration’s actions — but still concludes that the administration has violated the law repeatedly in implementing the ACA, even if not quite as often as some administration critics have claimed.

Law is for the little people. For the bigshots, there is only will.